You are so correct. That is the America that we must hang onto, at all cost.

USMC - Thank you sir; I appreciate your position, but I knew exactly what would happen. People nowadays do not study history - they simply do not believe that bad things can happen, and that true evil can exist in the world. And by evil, I don't mean people who string themselves out in the privacy of their homes (though to read of the punishments brought about for such heinous activity...). So as a society, we are still very much too quick to drink the unpalatable Kool-Aid that we are fed daily. I asked that my original post be removed because I know that simple, normal folk simply want to feel like they are doing the right thing - they cannot handle any way of thinking that conflicts with the comforting mantra that inebriates their spirits, and anesthetizes them into compliance. The problem is that nowadays, the "right thing" is the wrong thing. We are slipping toward a world that resembles one I used to read about in the history books and say "Thank God that could never happen here". But it is happening, and there seems to be nothing that anyone can do to stop it. Emotion and fear are ruling the day, and the statesmen are nowhere to be found. We have entered a new Victorian era, where we are willing to trade any freedoms we have... for what? For the right to live in a world where we cannot say or do anything that runs contrary to the corporate dogma? For the right to live in a world where we cannot carry a McDonald's sack into the Arizona Memorial, a camera bag into Hoover Dam, or even ascend the Statue of Liberty herself? What kind of beauty exists in a universe where no one is allowed to view the stars? The emperor has no clothes, and we have willingly turned a blind eye. I say that we are reaping what we have sown, and it is so sad - so sad. I am above engaging in personal attacks, because I understand, as you do, that those are a red herring. I am thankful that we still - for now - live in a country where true service and sacrifice such as yours has given us the ability to still speak out when we see the truth, and we will not be carted off to jail - for now. But there are simply too many examples of corruption, nepotism, favoritism, and statist support for unconstrained thuggery and bullying for me to remain optimistic. Asinine?? Not hardly. But science and mathematics teach us that when the observations run counter to our desires, then it is our desires that must be modified. Far from being asinine, that is simply too factual for some to cope with. (The squirrel who admonished his children to fear the flat, black, straight thing at the edge of the forest might be called "asinine" by those who put no faith in the fables of huge, swift, life-quenching yet obviously imaginary metallic contraptions, yet his would be the children who inexplicably continued day after day to return home...) So I understand. I would just like to see _one_ street named for a child who has died of cancer, _one_ motorcade for an innocent young gay man who has died of AIDS, _one_ granite monument for a woman who was brutally raped and murdered in front of her children. Then maybe I would enjoy a brief glimmer of hope for humanity. For now, all I can do is mourn much, much more than the loss of two individuals in an unnecessary firefight.

Where do we donate to the defense fund of people who have been inappropriately taken into custody as political prisoners of the State, or to those who have died through no fault of their own?

A bake sale. A bake sale...

A bake sale.............

When will the city shut down for victims of rape, or murder, or cancer, or spousal abuse, or drunk driving, or ALS, or AIDS? When do we close the town out of respect for those who have had no chance to make any choices against the agonies that outrageous fortune has dealt them? When do we wake up, and find true heroes to worship? When do we grow the cajones to call a spade a spade? How many civilizations have to fall before we understand the early warning signs? When do we realize that the time is growing near for it to be too late to halt the train? How old must we be before it too late to say that we have died young? When will we awaken from the intoxicating repose of our own catechized complacency? Who will watch over whatever it is that we leave behind? Who will be left to even care? What excuses would we dare offer our descendants for our own incompetence? And what hubris would allow us to delude ourselves into believing that we have a right to even try?

Really? "Visiting a common nuisance" is a felony? Wow, how many innocent people die every day of AIDS, or rape, or cancer, or ALS? Where are their teddy bears? Where is a street renamed for them? It is truly 1984, people, and our beautiful country is done for...

Anyone who agrees with this sentiment is an idiot. The blue and white losers gave up on a game - played to lose, and then had the audacity to tell the fans to shove it if they didn't like it. Fan support ($$) has to be at least 30% of their revenue, and that makes the fans who bought tickets shareholders. that means they get to vote, and vote they did. Many of us who live in the wonderful city of Indianapolis have had our faces spat and s+at in, and will not take that lying down. Everything in every sportsperson from Pee Wee on up says to do your best and try to win. This team is a bunch of losers, and I am livid that the name of my town is stuck to them. Mayflower needs to come in and get these losers the heck out of here, because they do not reflect our winning spirit and can-do attitude. I will never support them again, will never utter the name of the team, and I desperately hope they are routed by the Chargers or whomever they face, as a "karma"-ic punishment for having so egotistically spat in the faces of their supporters. Everyone needs to continue to boo these losers, every play, every game, forever. Never forget! Never give in to evil! Stand up for what you know to be right! It is not right to play to lose, and to give up! Not right at all! 15 straight Super Bowls are not worth the shame and humiliation brought on our city by this band of rejects. Mark 8:36 - this team has no soul left. Who wants them?